The Cold Light
by Madam'zelleGiry
Summary: His doctor had warned him that if he pushed himself too hard... if only Lestrade had listened. Sickfic for Edhla.


The text message simply said 'very clever.'

Sent approximately half eleven at night – twenty minutes or so before the recipient had shoved a lethal amount of Xanax and what reeked like whiskey down his throat. Found an hour later by a young mum picking her kid up from the babysitter; her shortcut through an alley had revealed a shrunken form lying over a grouping of rubbish bins. Her panicked screams resulted in a number of phone calls and mugs of shock-induced tea to be passed around as the neighbors waited.

And that was the reason why Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade now stood on the scene, splitting headache, intense exhaustion, and all.

He was never one for late-night calls to investigate a crime scene, but when the chief inspector made an order, he couldn't exactly refuse. And he really thought that his Paracetamol would have kicked in by now, not be made worse. Still, he had a job to do, and the sooner he started, the sooner he finished. Not that he was counting down the minutes…

Donovan was supervising the clearing of bystanders as the team roped off the area with bright yellow tape; he could see that she was less-than-overjoyed at having been roused from her bed, shown by her rather exasperated hand-gestures as a particularly stubborn man with a dog refused to budge. Lestrade pressed on the inside of his cheek with his tongue as he watched. Or attempted to watch, since his head was starting to make his vision blur. Not being able to see straight made him feel uneasy, but there was little he could do, it seemed.

Determined to shake this spell off, he made his way over to the body, which had been removed from the bins and laid out on the ground with a sheet. "What have we got?" he asked, squatting down next to the corpse and making a face as the stench of whiskey hit him in the face even before he'd lifted the sheet. _Bloody hell, was he drinking that or wearing it?_

"Male in his early twenties, no wallet or ID aside from his mobile, missing his shoes for some reason." The forensics guy, a new addition to his investigatory team, shrugged as he scribbled away on his clipboard. "No visible signs of violence on the body, enough whiskey to sink the Spanish armada, and an empty Xanax bottle in his jacket, prescription marked as being filled today."

"Right." Lestrade attempted to knead his aching forehead with two fingers before pulling the sheet away to examine the dead man. The smell… why couldn't he get past the whiskey? It was permeating the air around him, making him want to cover his face with his coat, anything to get some clear air into his head. He felt a wave of nausea rush over him as he bent lower, and he swore at the fact that it was obstructing his job. _Don't have time for this…_

Shaking his head to clear it, he took note of the man's clothing (sweats that were far too large on him, soaked down the front), physical condition (apparently he'd lost weight recently judging by that saggy skin), and the strange lack of shoes. If Sherlock had been there, he would have known in an instant what that meant. "He had a mobile on him?" he asked, blinking away a tiny bit of nausea as he turned to face forensics.

The man pulled out a plastic bag with the phone inside, handing it over to Lestrade. "Don't think you'll find much, sir. There's one message left on it; everything else was wiped. Contacts, messages, you name it. And the sender of that message was blocked."

Lestrade took the bag, attempting to make a mental note of the contents_. Need to stand up now… come on. _ It was with some difficulty that he managed it, for the world around him was spinning and the nausea was made worse by movement. "Right, is there anything else here on the scene we need to know about?"

The forensics man shrugged, still scribbling. "Looks like a suicide to me. Probably assisted, judging by text on that phone. But not much else to see."

"Then we'll just leave it for now. Get the snaps we need, then we'll be back at the Yard in the morning." Lestrade knew that this was a copout, but – "Aahhh." He suddenly realized that groan of pain hadn't been inward, and he tried to resist the urge to grimace in front of the new guy. Apparently his attempt was less successful than it might have been.

"You alright, sir?"

"I need to go," he said, eyes closed. "Make sure you get the report in. Tell Donovan."

Walking a bit unsteadily back down the alley to the main road, he couldn't tell if the forensics guy (hell, he really should know this guy's real name by now) was being facetious or not, but the sentiment really wasn't appreciated under the current circumstances. He knew that his forgoing sleep like this was not going to be good for his system. His doctor was going to have a good rage telling him that he needed to stop pushing himself so hard; full days of work combined with night of overtime was undoubtedly going to take its toll on his system. He wasn't a young man anymore, as said doctor loved to remind him, and he was going to push himself into disaster one day.

But he couldn't exactly refuse an order from the chief inspector, like what had happened tonight. Sure, a note from his doctor probably would be able to get him out of these things, but why would he want to bother getting something like that accomplished when it was so much easier to simply get the work done and deal with the consequences as they came?

All he knew now was that he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open, his head felt as though it would split in two, his side was beginning to hurt, and the nausea was enough to bowl him over in and of itself. Surely not a good combination…

* * *

He'd finally given up and hailed a cab to take him back to his flat, because he was afraid that he would fall asleep on the tube. Staggering out of the car and through his front door, he fumbled around for the light switch on the side of the front hall. The light stung at his eyes, and he covered his face with his coat sleeve as he tried to make his way inside. He shut the door of his front room behind him, finally able to relax now that he was alone.

The headache hadn't gotten any better; the pain had spread, but the fog in his head was preventing him from registering what that meant. He slowly pulled his phone from his pocket to see that it was nearly two in the morning.

_Wait… how did I get to the sofa?_

His chest was aching, a slow, building pain that was pushing down on his insides, and he did groan this time, clutching a hand to his heart, struggling to breathe. "Mm 'kay," he mumbled softly, trying to hold his phone in shaking hands. "Good…"

Something inside of him was screaming at him to move, to pull himself off the couch, call someone, do something…. But he couldn't move. His fingers weren't working, his legs weren't responding. All he could feel was pain… as he tried, he lurched forward, sick spewing everywhere until his stomach was empty. As he tried to lay back on the cushions again, limbs trembling and chest heavy, he realized that his phone was shouting at him. _Speaker phone?_

"Lestrade? Greg?"

He was on the floor now, dragging himself away from the stink. The sound of the phone was distant in his ears; he was pretty sure that he was imagining it anyway. _Just need a shower. That'll clear me up._

As he got closer and closer towards the bathroom, he didn't realize that the real person on the other end of the line had hung up.

* * *

John didn't know what to expect when he forced his way into the disturbingly silent flat. Lestrade was nowhere in sight, his phone remaining abandoned on the sofa cushion, crusted with dried vomit and the smell… his medical instincts kicked in at that, scanning the room to make sure that he hadn't missed the inspector before his ears became aware of the fact that there was water running in the bathroom.

"Greg?" he called, praying for some kind of an answer. "Greg?"

_Shit_.

He was in the bathroom in an instant, nearly slipping on the water that had pooled on the tile floor from the open door of the shower. Lestrade lay in a heap on the floor, eyes closed; it was a miracle that he had landed with his nose and mouth out of the water. A few degrees difference and he surely would have drowned.

John wrenched the tap to turn the shower off, kneeling down to pull Lestrade's body out of the shower, saying his name over and over again in an attempt to rouse him. One touch to his throat confirmed that his pulse was… alarming.

"Greg, you've got to wake up now," he grit out, rolling him onto his back. "Don't make me…"

But there was nothing he could do. He laced his fingers together and began to push down hard on the limp chest of the detective inspector.

* * *

Mary joined him at the hospital two hours later as they waited for news of Lestrade's condition. Emergency teams had arrived shortly after his efforts had begun, but by that point he was utterly exhausted, struggling to breathe himself as he lay next to his friend's body on the floor. He'd been permitted to ride in the ambulance as the responders asked him questions about the patient, trying to figure out what needed to be done.

It wasn't like John could tell them much. He'd woken to a call that contained intense retching and heaving. All he'd known was that it was from Lestrade's phone and he had to be able move; the feeling in his gut made him fearful. And apparently he'd been able to get there just in time. All the doctors would confirm right now was that it had been a heart attack, probably brought on by stress and overworking himself. And if he'd lain unconscious under the water for much longer, he would have drowned for certain.

He sat in the waiting room with his wife, her hand in his as she murmured softly in his ear. He was a doctor; he wasn't used to being on this end of the deal when it came to the care of a patient.

* * *

When Lestrade came unto his senses again, he had a sneaking suspicion that the first words he would hear from his doctor would be "I told you so."

Not having that pressing pain on his chest was enough to make him forget about that for the moment, though. The relief was immense. He was still tired beyond belief, but tired was something he could deal with. That pain had been a different story entirely. He put a hand to his chest now, pressing on the muscles to try to convince himself that the pain really had gone. It was bizarre…

"Feeling better?"

Lestrade jumped slightly, not having been aware that John was sitting at the end of his hospital bed. "Loads. What are you doing here?"

John smiled wryly. "Checking that you're still alive after I pulled your unconscious body out of the shower. Did you mean to dial my phone before that?"

Lestrade shook his head, running a hand through his hair. Maybe the voice he'd heard on the couch hadn't been his imagination… probably not.

"You shouldn't have gone in last night, Greg," said John quietly. "That really was a heart attack you brought on. And you're lucky that it wasn't worse."

"Yeah, I know, I just…" he trailed off, too tired to think of any good excuse or comeback at the moment. He was just glad that he was able to breathe again.

"Well, I have your phone. Cleaned it up for you." John tossed the mobile over to him and Lestrade caught it. There was a new message.

'If your man wasn't wearing shoes, check with the landlord. Bullying campaign. SH."

Well. That was that.


End file.
